Rachel Hewitt

Rachel Hewitt is a writer of creative non-fiction, and lecturer in creative writing at Newcastle University.[1]


Rachel Hewitt

Born
Rachel Hewitt
Spouse
(d. 2022)
AwardsRoyal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for non-fiction,
Eccles British Library Writer's Award
Academic background
EducationCorpus Christi College, Oxford (MA),
Queen Mary University, London, (PhD)
ThesisDreaming o'er the Map of Things: The Ordnance Survey and Literature of the British Isles, 1747-1842 (2007)
Academic work
DisciplineEnglish literature
InstitutionsNewcastle University
Notable worksMap of a Nation (2010)
A Revolution of Feeling (2017)
In Her Nature (2023)
Websiterachelhewitt.org

Education

Hewitt attended the University of Oxford, where she studied English Literature at Corpus Christi College for a BA and M.St. She completed a PhD in 2007 in English literature at Queen Mary University, London, with a thesis on romanticism and mapping titled Dreaming o'er the Map of Things: The Ordnance Survey and Literature of the British Isles, 1747-1842.[2][3] In 2009, she was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, to the Department of English and Drama at Queen Mary.[4]

Writing career

Hewitt's first book Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey was published in 2010 by Granta,[5] and built on her PhD thesis work. Hewitt was awarded a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for non-fiction for this project. [6] In 2011, Hewitt was announced as one of ten BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinkers.[7][8]

Her second book A Revolution of Feeling: The Decade that Forged the Modern Mind was published by Granta in 2017,[9] and explores the decade of the 1790s through the biographies of five people: poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, medic Thomas Beddoes, and photographer Thomas Wedgwood.[10] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.[11][12]

In April 2023, she published In Her Nature: How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors, a book which explores the histories of women's participation in sport and the 'great outdoors', interwoven with a personal memoir about loss.[13][14] Hewitt was awarded an Eccles British Library Writer's Award in 2018 for this project.[15]

Books

  • Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey (Granta Books, 2010); ISBN 978-1847082541
  • A Revolution of Feeling: The Decade that Forged the Modern Mind (Granta Books, 2017); ISBN 978-1847085740
  • In Her Nature: How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors (Chatto & Windus, 2023); ISBN 978-1784742898

Awards & Fellowships

Personal life

Hewitt has three daughters, and lives in Yorkshire.[20] She was married to Pete Newbon, a lecturer in Romantic and Victorian Literature at Northumbria University in Newcastle, who died in January 2022.[21] She is a keen runner and has been running since her mid-20s.[22]


References

  1. "Staff Profile - English Literature, Language and Linguistics - Newcastle University". www.ncl.ac.uk. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  2. "About". 22 March 2023.
  3. https://www.literatureandscience.org/issues/JLS_1_1/JLS_vol_1_no_1_hewitt.pdf
  4. "Early Career Fellowships 2009 | The Leverhulme Trust". www.leverhulme.ac.uk.
  5. "Map Of A Nation".
  6. "RSL Jerwood Awards". 30 November 2016.
  7. "Queen Mary has double success in BBC academic talent contest". Queen Mary University of London. 28 June 2011.
  8. Brown, Mark; correspondent, arts (27 June 2011). "X Factor-style search for 10 academics from generation think". The Guardian.
  9. "A Revolution of Feeling".
  10. "Rachel Hewitt: A Revolution of Feeling review - from passions to emotions". theartsdesk.com. 10 December 2017.
  11. "Royal Society of Literature » Rachel Hewitt". rsliterature.org. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  12. "Rachel Hewitt". Edinburgh Festival. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  13. Clark, Alex (20 April 2023). "In Her Nature by Rachel Hewitt review – reclaiming the great outdoors". The Guardian.
  14. "Norma Clarke - Running Free". Literary Review. 17 October 2023.
  15. "Taylor and Hewitt win Eccles British Library Writer's Award". The Bookseller.
  16. "Early Career Fellowships 2009 | The Leverhulme Trust". www.leverhulme.ac.uk.
  17. "RSL Jerwood Awards". 30 November 2016.
  18. "Taylor and Hewitt win Eccles British Library Writer's Award". The Bookseller.
  19. "Royal Society of Literature » Rachel Hewitt". rsliterature.org. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  20. O'Kelly, Lisa (2 April 2023). "Writer Rachel Hewitt: 'Running is fundamentally important to me, physically and emotionally'". The Observer via The Guardian.
  21. Frazer, Jenni (19 January 2022). "Tributes paid to academic and activist against antisemitism Pete Newbon". Jewish News. Retrieved 19 January 2022.
  22. "Who runs the world?". The Economist. 29 April 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
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